


count to ten

by ohallows



Series: podcast girls week 2020 [3]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, can be read as romantic or platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25144477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Azu is all out of healing. She had pushed and pushed until she could feel the magic scraping across her insides, until she could feel it bleeding out of her, and she has nothing left to give. Zolf is in a similar boat, burns caked across his arm as he holds it close to his body. He spent the last of his energy healing Sasha from that last nasty hit, and is stumbling along on half-broken legs, supporting Hamid with an arm around his waist. Cel and Grizzop are the best off, which isn’t saying much - Grizzop’s got nothing left in the arsenal either, as much as he’d grumbled and muttered and tried to squeeze one last spell in to heal Sasha’s ankle, but nothing had happened. Cel, for their part, had run out of potions ages ago, and Azu thinks that she can feel their guilt over it from here.
Relationships: Azu & Sasha Racket
Series: podcast girls week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820245
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40
Collections: Podcast Girls Week





	count to ten

**Author's Note:**

> posting this one a bit early in the day bc i had a nightmare, checked the ao3 tag, realised *it* was a nightmare, and then decided to post this so here i hope u enjoy!! more girls week woooo!!!

“I can still  _ walk,”  _ Sasha grumbles, arms folded over her chest in irritation as Azu continues to mostly ignore her while she carries Sasha out of the cave. “It barely even hurts, honest.”

“No,” Zolf says, voice pitched low in an effort to avoid detection; they aren’t sure if anyone is still around, but after the last surprise attack that left half of them downed, none of them are particularly willing to take the risk. “Just… let Azu carry you. We’re almost out, and then we can get you on a horse, alright?” 

Sasha mutters something and shifts her position, shoulders tight where they rest against Azu’s forearm. 

“ _ Sasha,”  _ Zolf says again, sounding like he’s on the absolute last thread of his patience - difficult to do, really, when he doesn’t seem to have much to begin with, but something that only Azu seems to be able to never cause. “Please.”

Sasha does fall silent at that, but her mouth is still pulled down into a frown, and she hasn’t relaxed at all in Azu’s hold. No one says anything else; awkwardness is clearly running through the lines of Cel and Grizzop’s bodies up ahead, and Zolf seems too exhausted to even care, at this point, not to mention how Hamid is still trying to get back to himself after the fight. They’re all a bit battered and bruised; Azu just sighs, and adjusts her grip again. 

The thing is - she doesn’t  _ mean  _ to make Sasha uncomfortable. She may not know the details behind all of Sasha’s hang-ups, and while she can’t empathise with hating touch the way Sasha does, she understands how it feels to be… helpless. 

That doesn’t mean there’s anything they can  _ do,  _ right now. Azu is all out of healing. She had pushed and pushed until she could feel the magic scraping across her insides, until she could feel it bleeding out of her, and she has nothing left to give. Zolf is in a similar boat, burns caked across his arm as he holds it close to his body. He spent the last of his energy healing Sasha from that last nasty hit, and is stumbling along on half-broken legs, supporting Hamid with an arm around his waist. Cel and Grizzop are the best off, which isn’t saying much - Grizzop’s got nothing left in the arsenal either, as much as he’d grumbled and muttered and tried to squeeze one last spell in to heal Sasha’s ankle, but nothing had happened. Cel, for their part, had run out of potions ages ago, and Azu thinks that she can feel their guilt over it from here. 

Grizzop is muttering something to them, Cel bent half over to hear him, and Azu hopes that it’s a reassurance. She’d be doing the same herself, but, well - Sasha needed help, and she was the only one able to hold her for an extended amount of time. 

They’re all out of options until they get back to the inn, where Wilde has an entire store of healing potions ready made for this. And as much as Azu feels bad and sympathises, she refuses to budge on this. Allowing Sasha to walk, when her ankle is  _ this  _ damaged… it goes against everything Azu was taught at the temple. Against every oath she’s ever made. 

Sasha is also making her displeasure known at every point, which Azu is trying to take with grace, but which is slowly starting to gnaw away at her.

“I’m just saying, I don’t need to be carried,” Sasha mutters again, and Azu focuses even harder on the silent meditative strategies that she learned from Healer Fairhands. “I’ve walked on broken bones before, it’s really not that bad, and I just -“

“ _ Sasha _ ,” Azu says, finally at her wit’s end. “Zolf  _ told  _ you your ankle was broken. You’re not walking on it. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself further.”

Sasha looks - well, a bit taken aback at that, actually, and Azu supposes that makes sense; she doesn’t remember if she’s ever really taken a firm stance  _ against  _ Sasha before, but now is as good a time as any. Still, it doesn’t last, Sasha still feels tense in her grip, and starts muttering something that Azu can’t even hope to make out. 

“I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I know you don’t like this. And I promise I will put you down as soon as I am able. But walking on a broken ankle will just take longer to heal. So, please let me help you.”

She doesn’t get a response, and she doesn’t really know if she expected to. Sasha is… fractious with accepting help at the best of times, and this very much so is far away from that. Still, Sasha seems… less  _ opposed _ after Azu says it. Or, at the very least, less interested in continuing to grumble and mutter and try to struggle out of Azu’s arms, which Azu will take as a small victory. 

Sasha relaxes eventually, even if she doesn’t relax completely. Azu knows, deep down, that’s it’s logically because of how tired Sasha is - how tired they  _ all  _ are, but she still allows herself a moment of silent celebration at the minor show of trust.

At one point, Hamid stumbles, tripping over rocks and branches, apologies slurring as he holds tighter to Zolf’s arm, and Zolf sighs and lets Hamid climb onto his back, arms slung over his shoulders. They continue on, walking as fast as they’re able with two of their party mostly out for the count and needing the support. 

Finally, they get to the horses, and Azu carefully helps Sasha up onto hers. Sasha’s fallen - well, not  _ uncharacteristically  _ silent, but silent nonetheless, and gets on without much complaint. She winces, once, when her bad ankle bangs against the side of the horse, but doesn’t make a sound still. She taps her one good foot against the horse’s side, gently, and it starts forward. Azu sighs, watching her go, and figures that when Sasha  _ wants  _ to talk, she will. 

Azu quickly summons Topaz - Cel’s gotten their own horse, Zolf and Hamid are sharing one pony, and Grizzop’s gotten another. Hamid did have a pony, originally, but he’s still out of it from the magic, so Zolf’s leading it along behind them. She swings up onto Topaz’s back, settling comfortably behind her neck, and gives her a gentle pat. 

“You still want to talk to me, don’t you, girl?” she whispers, and Topaz snorts, head turning to nuzzle softly at the side of Azu’s face. She laughs. “Good. Now, we should catch up with the others.”

Topaz starts plodding forward, bringing up the rear of the group. They ride in silence for a while; everyone is itching to be back as darkness starts to fall, even if ‘back’ means ‘quarantine’. Azu feels like she could sleep for a hundred years, even on a cold stone floor, and she hopes Wilde will let them have another bath this go, before locking them in. 

She sighs. She understands the protocol and its importance, but it’s not her favorite time, regardless. Less so when there’s so many of them crammed down in the basement, even with Zolf making it as roomy as he’s able. All of the space in the world, and she still feels like the walls are closing in around her as she tries to ignore the fact that they’re going to be stuck in a small basement room, soon.

Sasha knocks her out of her thoughts; the sound of hooves on the ground near her cause her to snap out of it, and she immediately spots Sasha riding next to her, having dropped back from riding next to Zolf.

“Azu? You okay?” she asks, eyebrows knitting together, and Azu nods. “Is it about the cell?”

Azu swallows. She hasn’t really told Grizzop or Hamid or Sasha or… any of them, really, about how much she hates enclosed spaces, how much she struggles to breathe when she feels like the walls are slowly constricting, but she never really had to. They’ve spent enough time together at this point that it’s obvious to all of them, even Cel and Zolf. That doesn’t make it easier to bear; they all do what they can to accommodate her - Hamid stays close to her and holds her hand, Cel transforms themselves into a smaller animal to give her more space to breathe, Sasha and Grizzop melt into the shadows (he’s really learned from her), and Zolf gives her as much space as he feasibly can. 

“I’ll be fine,” she says. It won’t do any good to worry about it now, anyway. “Did you want to speak about something?” 

Azu matches Sasha’s pace, and they both end up a ways behind the others as Sasha looks distinctly uncomfortable.

“I just wanted to... say sorry.” Sasha mumbles. It’s too quiet for anyone else to hear; it helps that Cel and Grizzop are leading the way, both too anxious to get back, and Hamid is mostly asleep against Zolf’s back. He’d collapsed after the final fireball and woken up confused and disoriented from the spell, and was getting some much needed rest. 

“For what?” Azu asks, genuinely confused as Sasha looks away, awkward as anything. “I mean - thank you, but I don’t think there’s anything you need to -“

“I know -“ Sasha says, cutting her off and still not making eye contact. “You were just worried about me. I didn’t mean to. Snap.”

“Oh,” Azu says, blinking. “You don’t - that isn’t something you need to apologise for. Thank you, though.”

Sasha falls silent again for a moment, clearly conflicted. “I was - I was being an arse. Couldn’t stop sniping. How come you still helped me?”

“I was happy to,” Azu says, feeling a bit confused by the question. “I always am.”

“Why?” Sasha asks, and there’s an almost desperation in her voice that Azu hates. 

“I do not like seeing my friends hurting,” Azu answers, not needing a moment to think. “And if there’s something I can do… it seems foolish to continue causing yourself pain when I - when  _ we  _ are here to support you.”

“... Yeah,” Sasha says, and when Azu looks over at her, she’s frowning. “Still haven’t really gotten used to having that, I guess.”

Azu takes a moment to respond; it’s a level of vulnerability that Sasha hasn’t really shown her before, not really.

She wants to reach over and squeeze Sasha’s hand, but the horses make that difficult - and, of course, she doesn’t want to make Sasha more uncomfortable. She doesn’t enjoy touch at the best of times, and Azu is sure that she’s feeling a bit more raw from having to be carried all the way to the horses. 

“I hope…” she trails off, letting herself figure out how to word it in her head before continuing. “I know that accepting help is. Not always easy? But I hope, one day, that it will become easier for you. It isn’t… an exchange. We want to help you, because you’re our friend and we care about you. It doesn’t need to be more than that.”

Sasha sighs, frustrated. “See, like, I get that? I really do? Zolf’s hammered it into my head enough, and you have too, but  _ nicer,  _ I guess, but, like. Okay, so, when you grow up your whole life,  _ not  _ getting that? It takes a while to sort of. Really get it. I guess.”

Azu nods. “I understand.” She’s itching to offer more advice, to try and help more, to give Sasha the outlet she clearly needs, the assistance that she thinks would only benefit Sasha, but while she may not be the most tactful person in the world, she’s gotten better at reading people, and she knows when Sasha doesn’t want to hear much. “I can. If it will help, I am here. On your terms, if at all.”

Sasha acknowledges this with a tight nod. “Yeah,” she says, short and quiet. “Anyway, er. Thanks. I - I’m not always the best at showing it, but. I do. Appreciate it. Er. Thanks.”

“Of course,” Azu says, and then Sasha clicks her tongue as her horse speeds up, riding silently next to Zolf again. She still looks uncomfortable, but… looser, somehow. As though a weight has slipped off her shoulders, and if Azu helped at all with that, well… she can be happy with just that.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments very appreciated ty


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